Professor Eyal Sivan, a lecturer in Sapir College’s graduate program for filmmaking, signed an open letter last week calling to boycott the international Berlin Pop-Kultur Festival due to its sponsorship by the Israeli Embassy.
The festival, to be held from August 21 to August 23 in Berlin, is an annual festival that brings together musicians from across the world.
The open letter, published on website of “Artists for Palestine UK,” was signed by professor Sivan and 13 other Israeli artists. It dubbed Israel a “racist regime” and called to boycott the festival.
“As Israeli artists, musicians, and filmmakers, we support the Palestinian call to boycott Pop-Kultur Berlin festival 2019, given its complicity with Israel’s racist regime,” wrote the artists.
The signatories also echoed other fringe Israeli academics who criticized Germany’s recent law equating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to anti-Semitism.
“We agree with 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars who called on the German government not to endorse the recent anti-Palestinian Bundestag resolution,” continued the letter.
“We also agree with Ishay Rosen Zvi, a Talmud professor at Tel Aviv University, who decried the attempts in Germany and elsewhere ‘to erase differences between criticism of Zionism, criticism of Israel, criticism of the policies of the government of Israel and antisemitism.’”
Matan Peleg, CEO of the pro-Israel watchdog Im Tirtzu that first reported the letter, said that this is another example of the harm caused by radical Israelis.
“While tremendous amounts of resources are invested in Israel and throughout the world to combat the international BDS movement, there are radical Israeli professors undermining these efforts by promoting BDS from within Israel,” said Peleg. “This is further evidence of how radical Israelis play a leading role in promoting BDS and delegitimization against Israel.”